05.02.24
Alderwoman Boyd's office in St. Louis, MO, provided to her by the Riverview West Florissant Development Corporation

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At the time of this interview, Pamela Boyd served as alderwoman representing Ward 13 of St. Louis City, which encompasses part of Cementland.

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Daniil:

Could you talk about the dumping issues that are happening around Scranton [by Cementland]? Is that generally a big issue you see in your ward?

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Alderwoman Pamela Boyd:  

I do. And since my election in April 2023, I have found more of it the issue on that end, and I guess it's because of people coming from other parts of the city and dumping there. What's interesting is, it's not heavy in the county; it's just heavy in the city. I have a daycare over there, and those people are getting hit very hard with the dumping. It's impacted the lives of the children that's coming there and the people that live on that property. So I did reach out; the mayor of Riverview and I did speak in regards to the plan of action. So I'm honored to say that he was very proactive. He's still sending teams over there by the Spring Garden [Drive] area and to Scranton to start picking up the dumping. 

And then I had a meeting today with the city's Environmental Investigations Unit. And the guy said, “It's not a lot of dumping over here now.” And I said, “That's because the mayor of Riverview has his utility teams going over there constantly checking.” So I want to say he has a check like once or twice a week to make sure that it’s clear, and it's minimal dumping relative to what it was before. But the long term plan is to incorporate more street lights over there with LED lights, so it's brighter, so they deter people. And then the other part is to have cameras on the light poles that will be hooked up to the Real Time Crime Center. So they can actually pick up when people are dumping in that area. Those are two things that we know that we're trying to improve. And I'm working close with him to make sure that we're a partnership, because we're right next door to each other, so it doesn't make sense for me to do something, and he doesn't know what’s going on.

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Daniil:

What do you think are some of the causes that people are dumping all this stuff in that area specifically?

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Alderwoman Boyd:    

What I found out was, these people that have these rental properties, and they hire you to clean the property out. And people don't know that in the city, you can go down to the city dump, and just dump it there. But you can do it 12 times in a month, you can do it 12 times in a year, but it's only 12 times [a year maximum to use the city dump]. I want to make it more often, so that way people can just go take stuff to the dump. Because at the end of the day, we're picking up either way. We're gonna have to go in the alleys and get it, or go over there on Riverview and Scranton and pick up this stuff that people have dumped. 

So one, the people who are being paid are not doing what they're supposed to do. And then two is the education piece. I’ll see people with stuff on their truck, and I'll say, “You know you can take that to the city dump?” And they are like, “No, I didn't know that.” “Yeah, you can. Cause I'm following. Because you're gonna dump it in my alley. I don't want you in my alley; let me tell you where you can go.” I'll even go so far as to give them my card and say, “Here, tell them the alderperson sent you down here so you wouldn't dump in the alley.” And they are like, “Oh, okay, I didn't know that.”. 

I tried to do whatever, but it's hard when you don't have the manpower to address this, and dumping is a big issue. We have increased the fines through legislation for people caught dumping, but they don't pay the fines; they don't come to court. And so we're not winning; this is not a win-win for us. So now we're ready to go to the state and ask them to partner with us to see how we can tighten the laws. To make sure that if Pam was caught dumping, and she doesn't show up in court, and she has a warrant out for her, we enforce that immediately. But also to make sure that they're doing community service, because a lot of people get community service for that, and they don't come to that either. So it's all about accountability. 

I think the two most dangerous words in our city are responsibility and accountability. People don't want to be held accountable, and they don't want to take responsibility for the actions that they do; it's everybody else's fault. So I just think that's something that has to be enforced. And when people say, you need to make laws—it's already on the book. I don't need to make laws; we need to enforce the laws. So we have a catch 22. We don't have manpower, police wise, to enforce the laws. And then we need to look at the laws that we have on the books, the legislation that we have, on is it going to impact, to make a difference. Because [the Environmental Investigations Unit] were saying this morning in the meeting, “Well, alderwoman, you know, they charge them $1,000 if they are caught.” And the guy said, “We caught the same guy five times—that's $5,000. But he never came to court! So he never paid it.” It’s back to not being accountable. He said, “But if we do something like confiscate that truck… Until you pay this and do this community service, you can't keep doing this.” He said, “We have to show some kind of accountability.” So I agree with that, we have to.

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Daniil:

And are there preventative measures that can be taken too? You mentioned better lighting in the area. Are there other things that can be done to make this particular spot less attractive for illegal dumping?

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Alderwoman Boyd:    

For Spring Garden, Scranton, Riverview, that whole area, I asked the Environmental Investigation Unit this morning if we can cut all that overgrowth down, and they said they're going to investigate it to see how we can do it. I said, “You gotta make it open, where people are not so quick to cover up and do what they do.” But what I found out also this morning is they just pull over to the side of the road and dump. So the Environmental Investigation Unit said, “After you clear, you might have to put fencing up there to stop them from doing that dumping over there.” “But,” they said, “they’ll just pull their truck over there and dump the stuff on the road and keep going.” So that's the mindset that we are dealing with.

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Daniil:

Have you or Riverview have been working with the owners of that lot on Scranton to address this?

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Alderwoman Boyd:    

No, I hadn't even thought about that. I'm glad you said something. 

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Liz:

Yeah, I think from what I know about the area over there, there's a lot of junk from the building itself. So I think some people just see the junk and they're like, “Oh, there's no problem to put more junk there.”

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Alderwoman Boyd:    So this is on Scranton? Okay. Well, I'll look into that. I went over there last year, and I drove through there, and it's beautiful homes over there. It's beautiful property. They even have a part that’s blocked out, but it's not appealing; it doesn't look attractive. It's no landscaping; it's just there. So I'm trying to figure out what I can do. You all just gave me some more work. 

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Daniil:

What are some of the risks of illegal dumping?

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Alderwoman Boyd:

Well, the risks should be that if you are caught, you’re fined $1,000.

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Daniil:

I was more so asking you about the risks illegal dumping poses to that community. What's bad about people dumping their stuff in an abandoned lot?

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Alderwoman Boyd:

I don't think people connect the two, but it's an environmental issue. We don't know where this stuff is coming from. We don't know how they handled it. So I take that very personally, because it impacts those people’s lives over there. It's twofold: I look at the people that live over there, but I also look at the staff, the employees, that we have that have to clean it up. So it's an impact both ways. We know that in our communities, the asthma rate, COVID, cancer—all that is double. And I strongly believe that dumping plays a role in it.

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Daniil:

There are several abandoned industrial facilities like Cementland in your ward in North City, probably. Is the continuing pollution from cement dust or whatever chemicals that might have been used in the industrial processes at those sites still a big concern in your ward?

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Alderwoman Boyd:  

Yeah, it is. Perfect example: Clayco was trying to put a cement company on Goodfellow by I-70. And I went against it, because of just what you said: the cement dust. I was like, “I can't expose these people to those conditions. That's not fair to them.” I'm taking it real serious, because I'm chair of Health and Human Development. And so environmentalism is a big issue to me, and I've always been adamant about fighting environmental injustice in our community. But in the ward that I picked up over there [during the 2021 redistricting], it's a lot of factories and stuff that’s impacting the lives of those people. So we need to be more aggressive in ensuring that people are held accountable with regards to those laws, like this old cement plant. That's why I said, “Well, I didn't know; now I need to do the research. How do I contact these people? What are your plans for this? Have you gotten the EPA involved to see how you can clean this up?” People don't realize that, and I think that's where the issue is.

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Daniil:

What are some of the things that can be done to clean up those areas for folks living around them?

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Alderwoman Boyd:   

Like I said, it’s back to education. It's educating people and empowering them with information. I think a lot of people don't know, businesses in particular, that EPA will come in, and they will do that for you. Because that's their role, to clean up the environment. But if you don't give the people the information, they can't move. And so my role, I feel, is to make sure people know this is what the issue is, and we need to address it. That's how we hold people accountable. Because now I've told you; you can’t say you didn't know. And now I can come back and I can start fining you. 

And another piece people don't know—that's a federal guideline. So we can bring the federal government in; we can go to the congresspeople and say, “Look, this is a violation per EPA, and now we need to take action.” This is like Josh Hawley and Coldwater Creek. They've been fighting for years about this spill, where it’s caused cancer for people; people have died. 

Another piece is in 4300 Goodfellow [Goodfellow Federal Center]. On my strip of that government property, they had a building that people should have never been in: it had mold, it had asbestos in there, it had chemicals in there. So they just finished doing a study on that building and gave us a report of the numbers. And I'm still waiting on that report, but it's high numbers. They are connecting cancer to people that worked in that building, because of the condition of that property. 

The old ammunition plant  that we have on Goodfellow and I-70—soil was contaminated over there, so they had to remove all of that. But now they have to remove the live ammunition from over there. So that's what I'm saying: it's just layers and layers of it. And trust me, you would never work yourself out of a job dealing with that. It’s everywhere you look.

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Daniil:

If Cementland was finished, it could have been like the City Museum. What kind of impact, from your perspective, would something like that have on nearby neighborhoods? 

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Alderwoman Boyd:    

I think it would be powerful. We have to think different in our communities. We can't look at the same old things needing to be in our communities. I think arts is something powerful that can be brought into our communities. And I think the people will really support a project like that. 

I'm just imagining you going down Riverview Drive, and they have upgraded the landscaping, and it's beautiful over there. And that old cement plant is like an art campus. I'm not saying it could happen, but what I would see—like the Foundry Art Centre in St. Charles. They took an old warehouse, and they made it into a place where artists could have studios. And they could actually do art displays and stuff in there. 

And then you can see different types of art, sculpture, paintings, all in that area. And you can have businesses; you can have restaurants, you can have cafes. That site could be so enhancing to that area. And it would make people over there feel like it's hope. Because right now, what I see—they don't feel like it's hope. They just feel like nobody's thinking about them, and nobody is trying to help improve that. 

To me, that's why it's so critical that I need interns and people from that kind of study to help build that area up. Somebody in architecture, planning or arts, and they would be able to redesign that area. Then we can start doing RFPs to get people attracted to come to that area. And I think it would be fabulous, because you have the North Riverfront Park over there, then you would have that, and then as you go a little further down, you will have Chain of Rocks Park. And then you will go into the WildCare Zoo, which is for the babies. So you could look at that whole area encompassed as an entertainment area. And I think it will be so enlightening to that area, because it just seems like it was forgotten. I just don't understand—how can you look at all of that and just forget it. 

I'm a visual person; I can tell you what I want. But artists could put it on a canvas; they could put it in a sculpture. When I went over there to St. Charles, and the guy took me around to show me all that, I was like, “This is gorgeous.” And then I went to Maplewood, and the mayor over there showed me the art piece. And they both said, “It's not gonna happen overnight. It's gonna take time. But you're gonna need the community to be at the table to help plan that design and make that work.” So that's why I said I need your age group, kids, to do that. Because you all have the energy. I don’t have the energy.

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Daniil:

If an artist was coming into a community to do a project like this, what might the process look like for them, ideally, to work with that community equitably? If somebody wants to build an art park in Chain of Rocks, and they have the funding for it, what are the steps they need to take to make their vision happen in conversation with the people living in the area?

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Alderwoman Boyd:    

What it’s gonna take is for the encompassing community that's there to have community meetings and start the conversation. We had a tragic accident on Broadway. People were calling me, and I said, “How long has this been going on?” “Oh, it's been going on for years.” I said, “Well, I can't fix what you've been dealing with for years. But we can call the town hall and start looking at traffic calming and bring organizations in.” So that's how I would look at the arts too. They would come in, and we would have a town hall and just start focusing on it. Maybe meet in Chain of Rocks, or maybe meet at North Riverfront Park, and just start letting people of the arts give their view, “This is what we see for this area in the next five years. And this is how we can build it up.” 

And we probably need to reach out to this Beelman Trucking and say, “What's your plan?” Because my question is, how long have they been sitting there? Why is this property just sitting there? I think a lot of the time in the city, properties sit because nobody has approached them. Nobody has said, “So what are you doing? Why are you doing this?” So that's why I think that's happening.

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Daniil:

With entertainment destinations like the one you imagined, are there ways to ensure that the revenue they generate stays in the encompassing community?

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Alderwoman Boyd:       

That's when you would have a Community Improvement District. So you would add that other tax to support that community. Say we have the Chain of Rocks Community Association (CORCA) over there. So it would support CORCA, and CORCA would lead that charge. They would be the ones that would do the beautification piece; they would do the work to have the meetings, and they would have the power to control that area. Because as large as my ward is, I have to take sections. And so CORCA would cover that North Riverfront area. That would be their whole focus, and they can start planning and start doing the work. 

But that's where the tax base will come in. I love the Schnucks in Maryland Heights right down Clayton, and I was just so blown away when they were like, “You know they double tax you?” I said, “Double tax?” They were like, “Yeah, because it supports that area.” So that's how it will be. But when it's presented to the community, you are telling them, “This area is paying an extra tax because it's going to help with safety; it’s going to help with beautification.” And do RFPs to bring companies in here to build this community. I can just see that; I think that will be beautiful to do that. You can start pulling from other areas of the city that do things differently and bring that into that area. And I think it will be a good complement to that area.

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Daniil:

Instead, Cementland might become part of a trucking operation in the area. Do you have any thoughts on the way that the logistics industry interacts with North City communities? Does that industry bring in revenue? Do they offer employment to local folks? 

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Alderwoman Boyd:        

The issue with the trucking companies is that they don't feel the need to talk to the community. And that's an issue to me, because you're a guest in our home, and so you need to respect us enough to present to us your plans with this land. How are you going to address the environment? How are you going to build up the economic growth in this area? How are you going to do in regards to jobs for these people that's living in this community? So that's something that I need to do—start addressing those issues with them, and then start penalizing. Because like I said, I don't know how long they've been sitting there. But that's a building just sitting there. So the city needs to be more aggressive, start holding people accountable. You can't have this empty building sitting here; you have 18 months to start making something happen or we're going to take ownership of this property and start doing the development ourselves. I just think that's disrespectful. You're in our community, and you have done nothing with this property.